


Stories the Stars Tell

by infiniteeight



Series: Worth the Risk [2]
Category: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
Genre: M/M, Romance, Second Date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 17:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5214896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteeight/pseuds/infiniteeight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will promised to take Alan stargazing. This is that date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stories the Stars Tell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notaredshirt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaredshirt/gifts).



> For notaredshirt, because she gave me this bunny. :P

Will looked at himself in the mirror and sighed. A suit was easy. He knew exactly what kind of suit to wear for every situation. What color and style to look sympathetic or authoritative. How to fit it so that he was overlooked, or so that he caught nearly every eye in the room. But you couldn’t go stargazing in a suit, so here he was, trying to decide if he looked attractive or just ordinary in dark wash jeans and a black long sleeved shirt. Casual clothes were so much more subjective, damn it.

“You look fine,” Will told himself. Christ, he hadn’t been this nervous about a date in years. Granted, he hadn’t had many dates to be nervous about, but the ones he had been on had all been first dates. You’d think he’d be more tense about those, but he’d never worried about first dates. The whole point of a first date was to figure out if you and the other person could be good together. If the date crashed and burned, well, then you had your answer, the date had served it’s purpose, time to move on.

But a second date… a second date meant that the test run had gone well and you had potential with the person. Having potential meant that there was a chance to screw up something good. That’s where the stress came in.

Thankfully, Will’s phone rang before he could get any deeper into self-doubt. Alan was picking him up; Will had a car, but Will was between Alan’s place and the park, so it only made sense for him to retrieve Will up on the way. Will picked up his phone and thumbed the talk button. “Hey,” he said, “I’ll be right down.”

“I’m around the corner,” Alan said. “There wasn’t anywhere out in front.”

Not surprising, in DC, since Will had his own car occupying the space out front of his townhouse. “No problem.”

With one last glance at the mirror, Will grabbed his coat, keys, and a bag he’d left by the door and headed out. Alan was, indeed, around the corner, but he was out of the car, leaning against the passenger side door and looking for Will instead of just waiting inside for him. Seeing him, Will caught his breath. He’d never seen Alan in casual wear before. In blue jeans and a fluffy white sweater, Alan looked… soft. Will suspected that was a description Alan wouldn’t appreciate and resolved to keep it to himself, but he didn’t mean it in a bad way. Soft meant nice to curl up next to. To cuddle with. It had been far too long since Will had gotten to cuddle with anyone.

“Hey,” Will said when he got into speaking distance. Alan straightened up and smiled and suddenly Will realized he wasn’t sure how they were supposed to greet each other. A wave seemed impersonal, a nod too distant. Were they supposed to kiss hello? Was a second date too early for that?

Will’s mind was spinning up into more worries as he came to rest next to Alan…who leaned in and briefly kissed him hello like it was nothing. Huffing a brief laugh at himself, Will gave Alan a quick peck in return and wondered if he was going to get chided for thinking too much, the way he so often had been in the past.

“I think I interrupted your train of thought,” Alan said. He almost sounded…apologetic.

“It wasn’t much of a train of thought.” Will opened the passenger door of the car and swung his bag into the back before sliding into his own seat, while Alan circled back around to the driver’s side. When he was settled behind the wheel, he shot Will an inquiring look. “I was trying to decide what the appropriate way to say hello was,” Will admitted. It sounded stupid to say out loud.

“Did you mind the kiss?” Alan shot him a quick look. “I know this is only a second date, but we’re not entirely new to each other.”

“The kiss was great,” Will said softly. Alan hadn’t told him not to think so much, and even seemed to have done some thinking on it himself, so Will went on. “If we hadn’t known each other reasonably well before the first date, or if we hadn’t kissed at the end of it, probably not, but for us, now, it was great.”

“I’ve been told I can move too fast.”

Will considered that. “Because when things are going well, sticking to a pre-determined timeline seems like a waste of time?”

Alan let out a relieved breath. “Exactly. Of course, it’s not a waste of time if it makes my partner more comfortable, but I need to know that.”

“Of course.” Will grinned. “I’ll keep you informed,” he said, a touch formally.

Alan laughed and tossed Will a warm glance. “Thank you. Now, I believe we were going to get dinner before heading out to the park. Do you have a preference for where?”

“I do.” It wasn’t a place Will usually took dates. About halfway between D.C. and the park where he normally went stargazing was a small restaurant that specialized in soups and stews. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was Will’s favorite way to fortify himself before spending hours out in the cool, or even downright cold, night air. “It’s on the way to the park,” he explained aloud. Oh, shit. What if Alan was already hungry? “If you don’t mind waiting a bit to eat, that is.”

“I’m fine,” Alan glanced at him and added, dryly, “we’ll probably get there faster than we’d get to a restaurant downtown, considering D.C. traffic.”

Will had to laugh, because it was true. 

As the drive went on, he relaxed further, remembering why he’d so readily agreed to a second date, especially one that involved something so personal to him. Dinner went just as smoothly as it had the first time, and before Will quite realized it, they were leaving the car behind in the park’s lot. 

Will retrieved the bag he’d brought from the back seat and led them towards one of the grassy, open areas. “There isn’t really anything in the way of benches,” Will explained, “So I brought a blanket.”

“I think I’d get a crick in my neck looking up from a bench,” Alan said. 

“I’ve done that,” Will admitted, chuckling. “But sometimes the sky is too beautiful not to look up at.”

Alan looked up, the way most people glanced at something when it was mentioned. His steps slowed, then stopped as he stared up at the sky. “It’s been so long since I was somewhere that made looking up worth it,” he murmured, “I’d forgotten.”

Will stopped next to him and looked up himself, smiling like he always did at the brilliant wash of stars across the sky. It was a good night for stargazing--the Milky Way stretched across the night like the seam where the heavens had been sewn together, and the brightest stars sparkled an invitation to search out constellations. It could make you feel small, but most of the time Will thought only of the observer effect, and the idea that observing something inherently changed it made him feel powerful, instead.

After a moment, Will looked away from the sky and touched Alan on the shoulder. “I think we were going to try to avoid the crick in our necks.”

Alan laughed. “So we were,” turning a warm look on Will. “Lead the way.”

It was only a dozen yards further. There were a few other blankets spread out on the grassy area, but there was more than enough space to give everyone relative privacy. Will stopped at a good spot and set down the bag, crouching to unzip it. He retrieved a large blanket from inside and shook it out, spreading it out over the grass. Seating himself, Will looked up at Alan, standing somewhat awkwardly over him. Will smiled and patted the blanket next to him. “Have a seat.”

Alan lowered himself onto the blanket even more awkwardly, going down into a sort of crouch before almost tipping over. Will suppressed a smile, instead busying himself getting the other supplies he’d brought out of the bag while Alan got comfortable. When he turned back, Alan was sitting with his feet flat on the blanket and his arms resting on his bent knees, watching Will. “I have coffee,” Will raised a red thermos, “or hot chocolate,” he raised a blue thermos, “if you want.”

“Later, I think,” Alan said. “When the cold has sunk in.”

“Okay.” Will put the thermoses away and turned back to Alan. “Let’s lay down, then.” He put actions to his words, lowering himself down onto the blanket so that he could look up at the stars comfortably. Next to him, Alan lay down, too, keeping his knees bent. They were silent for a moment, just taking in the huge sweep of the sky, so much broader than they usually saw in a city full of skyscrapers and lights.

“You were going to tell me about constellations,” Alan said eventually, his words quiet.

Will hummed softly. “I can,” he said. “But sometimes the best way to see the stars is to find your own patterns, to see your own life up there.”

They were quiet for a moment, looking up at the sky. “What do you see?” Alan asked.

“See that double column of stars over there?” Will pointed. Alan scooted over a bit, their shoulders touching now, and looked down his arm. “And there’s sort of an arc coming off each of the four corners?”

“I see it,” Alan said.

“That looks like someone dancing, to me.” Will lowered his arm, and smiled. “Not dancing very well, mind you.”

Alan laughed softly. “Is that your own life, then?” he asked, gently teasing.

“Maybe,” Will said evasively, though the truth was that all field agents were at least competent on the dancefloor. “Show me one.”

Alan looked for a while, then suddenly chuckled. “There. That’s a croquet hammer.”

Will burst out laughing. “A croquet hammer? Not that I don’t see it, but you have to admit that’s a weird one.”

“My grandmother was _very_ upper class,” Alan said, turning his head to look at Will. “My parents somewhat less so, but Nana was fully invested in country clubs and society dinners and summers at the cottage. I think croquet was her idea of early training for polo.”

“I’m guessing it didn’t stick,” Will said. “Croquet hammers in the stars notwithstanding.”

Alan smiled ruefully. “Not until I started rising in the ranks, it didn’t. She was very smug when I came to her after making deputy director in the CIA and asked for a quick refresher course on society etiquette. I’d done well enough until then, but I knew what I was going to be in for if I kept rising in the administration.”

Alan turned back to the sky, but Will continued to study him, the curves and planes of his face still somehow focused in the soft starlight. Will smiled. “I’m glad you met the challenge.” If Hunley hadn’t been so well connected, the IMF would never had returned--it was a lot easier to shut down an agency like that than to resurrect one, and they’d had a lot of enemies aside from Hunley himself. 

And they wouldn’t be here, either.

“What else do you see?” Will asked, turning back to the sky himself.

“Oh no, it’s your turn.” Alan insisted.

Will chuckled, but set about looking. “Fire hydrant,” he said, pointing it out.

“That is not a fire hydrant,” Alan said decisively. “That is the head of a much larger constellation of a dog.”

“It’s got a point at the top!”

“He’s wearing a hat.”

Will laughed until he was breathless before searching out his own set of stars. “If that was a dog in a pointy hat, then _that_ ,” he leaned close to Alan as he pointed, “is a monkey riding a racehorse.”

Hunley hummed. “If there’s a rider, they’re all hunched over.”

“Which is why I said monkey and not ‘jockey’,” Will said, snickering.

Their ‘constellations’ grew increasingly ridiculous and detached from the actual star patterns, from a man in seven scarves to dancing octopi to boxing dinosaurs. They leaned into each other as they pointed out the so-called constellations and laughed and speculated, snickering, about where each idea had come from, until Will turned once again from the stars to Alan and caught his breath to realize that their lips were barely a hair apart. Heat flushed his veins as Will realized he wanted nothing more than to kiss Alan. Meeting Alan’s eyes, Will saw his desire reflected there. It was all the encouragement he need to close the gap, bringing their lips together eagerly, the kiss quickly deepening. They turned onto their sides so that they could move closer, Alan’s arm sliding around Will’s waist and drawing their bodies together. 

One kiss slid into another, and another, until warmth hummed under Will’s skin and arousal teased, present enough to enjoy but not urgent enough to make him hard. Which was good, considering they were very much in public, but also a feeling that Will loved for its own sake. Alan’s hand resting on his back was pleasantly heavy, and he wasn’t hard yet either, which meant Will got to relax and enjoy the moment.

Eventually the kisses trailed off and they turned back to the stars, still cuddled close together. “Seeing them like this, it’s easy to see why the stars inspired so many stories,” Alan said. “I think we forget that, when the lights wash out the sky.”

Will hummed in agreement. “I spent a year or two considering studying astronomy in college,” he said. “I wanted to know what stories the stars have to tell.”

“Not mythology?” Alan asked. “If it was the stories you wanted…”

“The stories are about how humanity understood the stars in the past,” Will explained. He turned to look at Alan and found Alan ready to meet his gaze. “I wanted to know what was happening to them now, what their own stories were and not just the stories we gave them.”

“What changed your mind?” Alan knew, of course, that he hadn’t even started in an astronomy program; if Will’s current career wasn’t a give away, his file listed his degrees in international relations and economics.

“The answers to the questions I had were too straightforward,” Will said, smiling wryly. “Not that there aren’t almost impossibly difficult problems in astronomy and astrophysics--there are questions like that in just about any field if you take it far enough--but the more I looked into it, the less interested I was in studying questions with the goal of bringing them all to a single, concrete reality the way science always tries to do. I found branching, shifting answers more interesting.”

Alan chuckled. “Well, the intelligence community certainly provides those.”

“What about you?” Will asked. “What made you go into intelligence?”

“I wanted to protect the country,” Alan explained. “That’s why I joined the military, though it sounds naive to say it now. I wasn’t far into my military service before I realized that we weren’t preventing anything, just responding. I wanted to stop terrible things from happening, and although I know that it’s necessary, doing damage control in the aftermath felt like a poor use of resources. So I moved to get ahead of the threats.” Alan smiled almost apologetically, “Cost-benefit analysis again.”

Will remembered how angry Alan had been when he’d thought that Ethan was responsible for the Chaos that the Syndicate had been wreaking. Everything might come down to cost-benefit analysis for Alan, but that didn’t meant it was a cool, detached numbers game. “Have I mentioned that I like that?” Will said, offering a smile.

Alan’s whole body seemed to pause for a moment. Surprise, Will thought, though concealed. “Actually, no,” Alan said

“I like it,” Will said, and Alan relaxed and chuckled, as intended. “I like that you don’t fool yourself that anything comes free. I like knowing that when you go to particular lengths for me, it’s because I’m worth the effort to you.”

Some of the pleasure in Alan’s eyes dimmed. “The flip side of that,” he said, “is the implication that when I don’t spend time with you, it’s because you’re not worth it.”

That was the voice of personal experience if Will had ever heard it. But he didn’t ask, just said, “That depends entirely on what time with me is being weighed against.” Will forced a teasing note into his voice, “If you ever turn me down in favor of annual performance reviews, it might be an issue.” Alan didn’t look reassured, so Will dropped the teasing tone. “Alan. I’m the analyst who works things through six ways from Sunday before making a decision, remember? I can appreciate a good cost benefit analysis.” Will smiled and echoed the promise he’d made earlier in the evening, “You just have to keep me informed.”

Alan laughed softly, the light coming back into his eyes. “I will,” he promised.

“Good.” Will leaned in and gave him another slow kiss before pushing himself up to a seated position. “Ready for that hot chocolate now?”

Alan raised an eyebrow as he sat up. “Didn’t you say there was coffee, as well?”

“Sure, but you might have to fight me for the coffee,” Will said, grinning.

“Far be it from me to deprive you of your addiction,” Alan’s tone was dry, but his expression was warm.

He accepted the hot chocolate with good grace, which said more than anything.

(There was enough coffee in the thermos for more than one cup, of course. Alan could have have it next.)

~End~


End file.
